Formally
by Ellyrianna
Summary: She wants a word for what they are. They want an explanation. He just wants to stop all of the questions and start living. Robin/Raven.
1. Emotion's Hostage

**Formally  
**one: emotion's hostage

--

"What exactly are we doing here?" Raven asked quietly, staring blankly ahead at her bedroom door. It was closed, and the room was nearly dark; only the moonlight coming in through the windows (which were, as always, uncovered) provided a source of light.

"Define 'here'," Robin said, running a hand through her hair. They were on the bed, Raven's cloak covering them. She was leaning up against him, one hand pressed against his bare chest, her head against his shoulder. "Like, evolution? Place in this world?"

"Don't avoid the question," she snapped, pulling her head away and looking up at him. "What are we" – she gestured to the two of them – "doing" – she motioned to the bed – "here?"

Robin sighed heavily. He could think of a thousand answers to that question, but none of them would have been the one she wanted to hear. Their relationship was completely separate from what happened at night, in his mind; the simple fact being that daytime was love, and that nighttime was stress relief.

"Well?" Raven prompted, and Robin had to think fast, or something was going to wind up exploding.

"You want a word?" he blurted. A few moments of tense silence passed, and then, as her head settled back against his shoulder, "Yes."

After a brief brain-wracking, Robin offered the only word he could think of.

"A…courtship?"

The silence between them stretched on for several minutes, and Robin hoped that she had fallen asleep.

"That would imply that you wanted to get married," she said eventually.

Robin bit his lip and said nothing. It wasn't that he didn't love her and wouldn't like to marry her at some point; just that it was a few years before he wanted to star thinking about something that serious.

"Care to revise your statement?" she asked when he hadn't answered after a minute, and he didn't have to look to know that she was smirking.

"No," he replied stubbornly, shaking his head. "No, I hold to my story, your honor." Raven gave one of her deep chuckles, and Robin smiled; that had been his aim. "Anyway," he continued, "if courtship is what you chose to call it, that's even better – that way, I'll already have my claim on you. No one else'll be able to take you away from me."

"Nice cover," she deadpanned, but proceeded to wriggle closer to him.

"Always knew my skill with rhetoric would come in handy," he said in an offhand manner as he wrapped his around her.

"You learned a new word. I'm very impressed," Raven replied, laughing a little.

"How about a kiss for the good student?" he asked hopefully. She yawned.

"Maybe tomorrow," she said, her voice noticeably smaller. "Now sleep is imminent. That's your next vocab word, by the way."

Robin settled back against the pillows, holding Raven tightly against him, trying to get used to the idea that he was more than just her boyfriend now.

--

Four Months Earlier

"The story of Raven?"

Robin jerked his head up and instantly muted the TV. It was well past midnight, but he didn't think he'd ever be able to sleep normal hours after what had happened. Whenever he closed his eyes in the dark, he saw Raven giving herself up to her father; saw Slade leading her away while he, Robin, was powerless to stop him; saw her, terrified, reduced to a child. He had thought that his sleeplessness after her birthday was over – unfortunately, he was wrong.

"Yeah," he said, smiling. "What, bad title?"

Raven walked completely into the room and took a seat beside him on the couch.

"Could've been better," she agreed. They shared a quiet laugh before she added, "Still…I can't believe you risked everything for me the way you did. Trusting Slade, chasing me around some pit…not many friends would go that far. That wasn't even the first time, either – on my birthday –"

He cut her off with a rapid shake of his head. "Stop," he said firmly. "I'm not a normal friend. When my friends need me, I'm always there, all the way through. No one means more to me than you."

Robin's eyes widened behind the mask. How had that slipped out? He didn't even realize that that had been what kept him up at night until his subconscious had betrayed him like that. It seemed to make sense; yes, thinking about what could have been was enough to keep you awake into the small hours of the morning, but that wasn't what had occupied his attention – it had been her. Common sense, really, now that he was focusing on it.

He glanced at Raven, saw her perplexed expression, and hastily added, "And Cyborg, and B.B., and Star."

She nodded, turning her eyes to the floor. The mute TV was still glaring at them, and even though mouths moved on the screen, they might as well have been closed – they weren't saying anything either way. Inwardly, Robin felt the same thing was happening between him and Starfire, now that he had mentioned her. They kept talking, but nothing substantial was coming out; their relationship – if that was what they had – was just a lot of flapping of tongues and no action. He noticed that he and Raven were sitting closer than he had originally realized.

Robin put a hand on her shoulder an tried to smile reassuringly at her, putting everything he had just thought about to the back of his mind. "I just meant that my friends mean more to me than anything. I would do anything for you" – he'd done it again! – "and…the other Titans."

"Would you?" she asked seriously, and he nodded, confused.

"Yeah, of course," he said, somewhat warily. What was she getting at?

"Then would you answer one question truthfully for me?" Robin tried to see if she was laughing in any manner, but one look at her grave expression got rid of that idea.

"Sure, alright."

Without hesitation, Raven asked, "Do you love her?"

Robin's mouth opened automatically, but he didn't know what he was going to say. A thousand thoughts were running through his mind, and the fact that she had easily targeted what he had been reeling about set him off-balance. As well, he still had no idea what his final resolution would be – was he supposed to give her a definite answer? She had said truthfully, but how could he decide in a split second?

Then, without prompting, a single moment came to him. He saw himself putting his arms reflexively around Starfire as she hugged him while he watched Raven sacrifice herself. He was holding Star, but all he could think about was Raven. The end of the world was definitely forerunner for problems in his mind up until and immediately after then, but for that moment, he couldn't think of anything except that, no matter how hard he had tried, she hadn't let him help her. He could still feel her hand in his, still felt like he was looking straight into her eyes and begging her to see that she could avoid something if she wanted to. He was holding Starfire, but your physical actions are only the manifestations of your thoughts, right? And if his thoughts weren't with her, then what?

"No," he said bluntly.

He didn't wait for her to answer before leaning in and kissing her.

--

Present

"I've got your tea," Robin announced as he came into Raven's bedroom after a brief excursion to the kitchen following a shower. It was hardly six-thirty in the morning, but Raven's uncovered windows had betrayed them, and the rising sun had woken them up.

"Thank you," she said, putting aside the book she'd been reading and gratefully accepting the mug he held out to her. The door had already slid shut, but she still glanced over at it before delivering the kiss he'd been expecting.

"Why do you still look? Everyone knows; it's not a secret. The worst is behind us," he said, sitting beside her on the bed. Instead of answering, she buried her face in her cup.

Robin heaved a sigh and crawled up next to her; this caused Raven to roll her eyes, but she set her cup down on the floor beside the bed nonetheless. He accepted the invitation she had silently offered and rested his head against her chest. She ran her fingers through his hair, which was flat and sleek; he hadn't spiked it yet, and after the shower, it was blessedly clean. Otherwise, as she knew from experience, it would have been thick and crunch from all of the gel that he used. When she had asked him why he constantly touched her hair, he had answered, "Because it's so soft and smooth. I'm not used to it."

"I'm not afraid of anything, I've told you before," she said after a minute, somewhat harshly. He said nothing, and she briefly considered that he was falling back asleep; not hard to believe. "I just keep wondering if Starfire…or Beast Boy…if they see us together one more time, they'll snap. I know what it's like to be a slave to your emotions. Coming from me, it may seem strange, but I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings if I don't have to."

"That's because you're a good person," he murmured, finding her hand and lacing his fingers with hers. She was back in her leotard, and he had sweatpants on, but now that they were under the blankets on the bed, the image it provided was misleading – as proven when Cyborg and Starfire invited themselves unexpectedly into Raven's room.

"Friend!" Starfire bellowed from the doorway. "Cyborg and I –"

Robin raised his head slightly and Raven's eyes widened slightly, but neither had time to dispel the image that Starfire and Cyborg were going to see and, inevitably, interpret.

"Oh" was all Cyborg could say, his eye darting back and forth, as if looking for a place to hide. He managed a shaky smile, saying, "S-Sorry, didn't think…um…" He swallowed, looked to Starfire, and saw that he wasn't going to get any help from her. "Well, breakfast's getting cold! Come on down if ya'll want it…uh…later." He gave a nervous wave before darting out as quickly as he had come in.

Robin had been falling asleep when Raven had been talking to him (as she had predicted) and methodically stroking his hair, but he found himself wide-awake now. Sitting up and scratching the back of his neck, he glanced over at Raven, who had her eyes closed. Robin knew without asking that she was meditating; the embarrassment and guilt she must have felt were threatening to overwhelm her and she needed to get it under control.

"I am sorry to have interrupted you," Starfire said quietly after a few seconds. "I did not realize you were having the sleep-over." She turned to leave, but looked one last time over her shoulder at the two of them. In her eyes Robin saw hurt and pain, but rather than feeling guilt for having caused it, he could only discern a slight tightening in his chest that he related with a sort of pity for her that she still got upset every time she saw he and Raven together. He wasn't trying to be scornful, he realized, but Star would most likely have interpreted it that way if she had heard what he was thinking.

It was only for a second, and then she was gone. Raven let out a long breath and opened her eyes. She looked at Robin and groaned before promptly falling into his arms, her cheek pressed up against his shoulder. He held her tightly, teeth gritted. He understood completely how she felt, after all, it was easy to deal with your friends in your mind, but it was different in person. She had had a point about what she had said just minutes earlier.

Raven certainly wasn't crying, but she was frustrated, and holding onto Robin seemed to be her stress relief so that she wouldn't expend her emotions enough to cause damage to anything.

"It'll be alright, it'll all work out," he promised in a vain attempt to soothe her well-deserved aggravation.

He could only hope that he was right.


	2. The Marble Arch

**Formally  
**two: the marble arch

--

"I still don't get it," Cyborg said, shaking his head.

"What's not to get?" Robin asked for probably the hundredth time, glaring at him.

"You had Star right there. And you two always seemed to have a thing. I dunno." He shrugged and picked up a wrench, sliding back under the T-Car.

"What thing?" the other shot back. "The same thing I have with you and BB – you're my teammates. There wasn't anything special between us. Maybe she thought that, but there wasn't. It's just because she's a girl that you can say that."

"No, see, it was more than that. All those times –"

Robin cut him off, slicing one of his hands through the air. "I did for her what I would do for any of you. I repeat: it just seems like special treatment because she's a girl. If I did any of that for you guys, nobody would say anything."  
"You wouldn't sit on a Ferris wheel and eat cotton candy with me or BB, Robin," Cyborg retorted, sliding out long enough to glare at him.

"I was being a good friend."

"Then how come you're being more than a good friend to Rae?"

"Why does this bother you?" Robin hissed. "I thought you two were friends."

"We are. Just…nobody likes seeing Starfire moping around here the way she's been," Cyborg said, sitting up and avoiding Robin's eyes.

"I get it now. It's not about the way I feel, or even the way Raven feels – it's about the way _Starfire _feels. Nobody seems to understand that this isn't about her!" he shouted, slamming his fist down on the table.

"Yeah, it's about you and Raven, and the way you guys have been completely ignoring the rest of us." Cyborg stood, crossing his arms and glowering at Robin.

"Maybe we wouldn't if everyone would stop acting like we've committed a crime."

"You've abandoned the team. Isn't that a crime?"

Robin blinked.

"Abandoned –?" He cut himself off, looking around disbelievingly. Then he stood up abruptly and pointed a finger in Cyborg's face, and it managed to be intimidating despite the obvious height difference. "I have never abandoned my team, and you know that I never will! If you love Starfire so much, then _you_ go and date her!"

With that, he stormed out of the garage, kicking aside a hunk of scrap metal as he did so.

--

"Bad day?" Raven asked, opening one eye when she heard the door to the roof slam open.

"That's one description," he muttered, striding up to and taking a seat next to her on the concrete. She was in the middle of meditation, hovering slightly above the ground, but she pushed back her hood and dropped down beside him when she noticed just how foul his mood was.

"I've told you this once, and I'll tell you this a million times more – don't let your emotions get the best of you. Relax. Breathe. Don't get worked up over everything."

"Cyborg --!" he started, but ate the rest of his words when he saw her shaking her head and pressing a finger to her lips.

"Relax," she repeated.

"I don't –" Honestly, he didn't know why he was still trying.

"Relax," Raven deadpanned, staring him down until he did so. Taking a deep breath, he let it out, allowing his shoulders to slump and his head drop forward slightly. She closed her eyes and resumed her levitation, silently going through her meditation ritual while he stayed quiet to appease her. While Robin didn't disapprove of Raven's tactics, for him, stress relief was always kicking the crap out of a dummy or blowing the obstacle course to smithereens.

After several long minutes, she set her feet back on the ground and offered him a hand up. He took it, and they started walking back to the door.

"What happened?" she asked, in the tone of a gloating mother asking her child _Feel better? _after a time-out.

"Cyborg accused us of abandoning the team," he told her, but his stony expression didn't belie the emotion in his voice.

Raven wasn't one to be shaken easily. She had assumed something like this would crop up eventually; however, she had failed to take into account just how upset Robin would get over it. "We know he's wrong, so it shouldn't matter," she said simply, giving a noncommittal shrug.

"It matters to me!" he shouted, stopping in his tracks and slamming his fist into his palm. "I know that you can think around it, but I can't. This team is my family, and nothing comes in the way of family."

She opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again, realizing the full implications of what he'd just said.

"You can't mean us." Her voice was flat, but Robin could tell the subtleties that no one else could, and he knew that things were going to start exploding soon.

"No," he said quietly, shaking his head, and put a hand on her shoulder. "But I think that we need to take care of this, now, before something happens."

She wanted to know what could happen, but instead Raven asked, "And how do you propose we take care of this? I don't see anyone – particularly Starfire – sitting through an explanation, and I don't want to corner them all individually."

"I don't know." It was hard for Robin to admit it, but he had no other option – he was lost on the subject. How to approach them all? It wasn't exactly an easy subject.

"We'll think of something tonight," she told him, resuming the walk. He rolled his eyes behind the mask; most likely they'd have other things on their mind tonight than designing strategies.

"Yeah," he agreed. As Raven opened the door, he took her wrist, causing her to look over at him; he leaned in for a brief, chaste kiss. "It'll work out," Robin promised.

"You always say that."

--

**author's notes: **I'm so sorry that it's been an eon (well, almost a year) since I've updated this. My only defense is that this year was hellish and crazy and that I didn't really do much overall in the way of fanfiction. I have no plans to abandon this story, although there should only be one or two more chapters after this (it was only ever planned to have three total). Hopefully I'll get it wrapped up before school and field hockey start in earnest.


	3. The Midnight Hour

Formally

**three: the midnight hour**

For a few more days Robin and Raven continued as they had for some time, living together but separately from their teammates, answering incoming calls as a group and then branching off the moment the trouble was over. They joined Beast Boy for breakfast in the morning and made halting small talk with Cyborg when he came in to watch television with them, and because it was just natural enough that every moment was not a grating challenge, Robin was willing to let the entire matter drop and just follow the path of least resistance.

Then, of course, there was a minor incident involving Beast Boy burning a midnight snack that roused the Tower's fire alarm. Robin, coughing around in the smoke, went straight to Raven's room to make sure she was leaving, and when he couldn't find her, raced around, arm over his mouth, coughing and calling out for her. Eventually he was forced outside without having located her because the air had gotten so thick.

Outside, he found Starfire, Cyborg, and Beast Boy standing around in the chilled darkness. None of them would meet his eyes, and Cyborg was openly glaring.

"Where's Raven?" Robin asked, but had to turn away and cough into his shoulder before continuing. "Is everyone okay?"

Beast Boy stood up off of the rock he'd been squatting on. He kicked a stone and sent it flying out into the void of the sea surrounding their little island. "Are you sure you care about that?"

He glanced up sharply at him. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Well, you didn't check for any of us when the alarm went off," Cyborg said. "You didn't even yell for us all to get out. You just went looking for her."

Robin scraped a hand exasperatedly through his hair. Was this really happening? Was his home really filled with smoke and his girlfriend nowhere to be found? Was he really being frozen out because he picked the wrong girl?

"I can't deal with this right now," he muttered. He shook his head and stalked back to the Tower, which lit up without warning. The dull screech of the alarm also stopped. He took a step back; at the same time, the front door opened again and Raven ducked out, the cowl of her cloak pulled up close over her face. His stomach bottomed out with a cold kind of relief.

He knew that she didn't need him protecting him, didn't need him watching out for her, but that was an aspect of himself he couldn't fully suppress. He tried his best to tamp down his instinctive urges to shield her during fights and follow her when she disappeared into the dark embrace of her powers, well aware that she despised the idea of being coddled or taken care of. He was also very confident that she could navigate some toaster-smoke on her own, but still had been gnawed with fear not being able to find her, having to leave without her. Seeing her in front of him, whole, unharmed, even though he had expected nothing less, was still an immense relief.

His arms were around her before he could stop himself, his hands scrabbling over her knobby shoulders and into her hair. He kissed her without even meaning to, kissed her without even considering the obvious ramifications of exacerbating an already troubled situation.

"Relax," she said, pushing away from him slightly. In her voice he heard a warning, a reminder to take caution. Of course she was composed and aware enough to judge and consider what their current social climate was. She's read the tableau in an instant and he still hadn't fully discerned it. "I couldn't sleep. I was meditating on the roof."

He could feel their friends standing behind them, watching them, waiting for them to do something. Robin decided to keep talking to delay the inevitable.

"You didn't hear the alarm?"

"I was meditating," Raven repeated, her eyes flicking up over Robin's shoulder and then meeting his again, silently asking him what to do. "Say something," she hissed.

"What?"

She considered for a moment. "Call a meeting."

He opened his mouth to argue, but a swift look from her silenced him. He turned around to face their three other teammates. Starfire was staring out at the dark water lapping at the shore of the distant, ghostly-lit city, Beast Boy was skipping rocks with unsettling accuracy and an impassive expression, and Cyborg was merely standing, arms crossed, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Robin drew in a deep breath that tasted like stale, sour smoke. This was going to be a tough bullet to bite.

He said, "Guys, we need to talk."

The team mutually agreed to wait until the next day for what was sure to be the most awkward and unpleasant gathering in the Titans' history, choosing instead to catch what little rest was left in their night rather than shift uncomfortably on the couch while they cleared their throats and avoided each others' eyes.

As a straggling group, the five of them reentered the Tower, made sure there was no damage done to the place, and reset the fire alarms after opening the windows to air out the smoke. They all retreated at first to their separate rooms for the sake of appearances, but after a half hour had elapsed and there were no shuffling sounds in the hallways or running taps in the bathrooms, Robin thought it was safe to slip out of his room and into Raven's.

She put down the brush she was running through her hair when her door opened. "This is going to be a disaster," she said flatly, pushing back the stool of her vanity and rising. She crossed the room and stood with her arms folded before the window, staring out into darkness.

He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She shrugged him off and went to the bed. Robin rubbed his eyes tiredly and followed her, stretching out on his side. His feet always dangled off of the rounded edge, and he knew that, for whatever reason, Raven was intensely tickled by this.

She laid out flat on her stomach and rested her head on her arm. He looked up at her sideways and reached out to brush away the strands of her hair that had fallen over her face. She allowed this gesture with neither a cynical comment nor an exasperated facial expression, which privately thrilled him.

"We just have to tell them to grow up," he said, forcing more bravado into his words than he truly felt. "We have to remind them that we're all practically adults and that it's time to get over this high school kind of bullshit."

"Especially since we never went to high school," she dryly retorted.

Robin's hand trailed away from her hair to cup her cheek, and he leaned in and kissed her, always carefully, chastely, at first. It always had to be Raven's choice to decide whether to turn away or open her mouth wider, kiss him deeper, because only she knew the limits of her emotions and how she had to restrain them at any given moment. If she was calmer, they could go further; if she was incensed, it was best they stayed apart.

Raven rolled onto her back and Robin threw a leg over her waist, sliding over her and hooking his fingers into the sleeves of her leotard. As he began to ease it away from her skin, Raven turned her head away from him, breaking the kiss. His hands paused and he sat up slightly.

She wasn't looking at him. "Why are you so interested in me?" she asked.

"Do I really have to explain myself?" he mumbled, and silently adding _Now? _to this question in his mind.

"I'm not pretty," Raven said.

"You are," he insisted.

"I don't have a good personality."

"You do."

"I've got a bad history."

"That's true."

She met his eyes. Robin sighed, sitting up fully, his knees planted on either side of Raven's hips and his fingers coursing through his hair in an attempt to stimulate compelling responses out of his tired, smoke-addled brain.

"You're intelligent," he began. "You can dissect a situation in an instant, you see through traps, you analyze what we're all thinking. You're complicated" – she snorted derisively – "but that makes you sexy, because a dark, ambiguous background is an instant turn-on to a guy. It also helps that you kick serious ass, and that you could kill me with your brain if you wanted to – and that you choose not to." He smiled. "For now."

"I'm not insecure," she started, and as he saw her cheeks start to flush, and felt the equilibrium in the room shift. Something was going to crack and break if she got anymore embarrassed. "You don't validate me. I don't need you."

"Very romantic. That really sets the mood, you know?"

She laughed, a rare and therefore enticing moment.

"I'm just letting you know. In case you're looking for an out," she added after a brief hesitation.

Robin bent down to kiss her again, tangling one hand in the blanket beneath her head and the other sliding beneath the small of her back to bring her closer to him. "I'm not looking for an out," he said against her lips. Her breath was hot on his face, hot like the smoke had been. "I'm just looking for a way to be with you properly. Formally."


End file.
